What Dreams May Come (1998) as Annie Collins-Nielsen
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) as Claire Bartel
Jungle Fever (1991) as Angie Tucci
Cop Land (1997) as Liz Randone
Short Info
Date Of Birth
March 29, 1960
Spouse
Joe Petruzzi
Fact
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1990" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 42.
Annabella Sciorra is an American actress. She was born on March 23, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York, to a housewife and a bricklayer. Her parents are of Italian descent. She has two brothers and a sister. Sciorra was raised in a Catholic household. She attended Catholic school and graduated from the High School of Performing Arts in 1978. After high school, she studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute.
Sciorra made her film debut in 1984’s The Brother from Another Planet. She has since appeared in films such as True Love (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), What Dreams May Come (1998), and Cop Land (1997). In 1996, she received an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in The Addiction.
Sciorra has also appeared on television shows such as The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Nurse Jackie. In 2016, she accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her in the early 1990s.
Sciorra is divorced from actor Joe Petruzzi. They have a daughter named Lily.
General Info
Full Name
Annabella Sciorra
Date Of Birth
March 29, 1960
Height
1.57 m
Profession
Film producer, Actor
Education
South Shore High School, American Academy of Dramatic Arts
Nationality
American
Family
Spouse
Joe Petruzzi
Accomplishments
Nominations
Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Movies
What Dreams May Come, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Jungle Fever, Chasing Liberty, Cop Land, Mr. Wonderful, Whispers in the Dark, Find Me Guilty, Romeo is Bleeding, Mr. Jealousy, Reversal of Fortune, The Addiction, Internal Affairs, The Hard Way, 12 and Holding, The Night We Never Met, New Rose Ho...
TV Shows
Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Whole Truth, Mental, Queens Supreme, The Fortunate Pilgrim
[on her The Sopranos (1999) role as Gloria Trillo] People were like, 'We're never going to like you because you're sleeping with Tony, and he's married'. People were really very furious about it. They also, on the other hand, would say, 'When you threw that steak at Tony, you threw that steak for all womankind'. I remember when we shot that scene the crew all wanted to throw the steak. At first they used, like, a sponge steak, and then they used a real one, and that was easy. I had a good aim.
2
It was kind of funny that everybody that was on the show, even after they got killed off, you would see them coming by for lunch. Nobody wanted to leave the family.
3
(1992, on being recognized) A lot of weird things happen to me. People call out to me on the street and I figure I know them, and I walk over. And then they start to talk about a movie, and I get so embarrassed. Sometimes they think I'm Lorraine Bracco or Laura San Giacomo or Marisa Tomei. I'm sure it happens to them all the time, too. The thing that drives me nuts is when I get stopped in a crowded place, and they look at me and say, 'Who are you?' I don't know if they're friends or fans, and I say, 'I'm Annabella Sciorra', and they say, 'What have you done?' So I start to give them my resume. It's so embarrassing.
4
(1992, on originally wanting to do Rebecca De Mornay's role in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)) Originally, they wanted me for the nanny and they wanted Rebecca for the mommy. We screen-tested both ways. I don't know if Rebecca had real strong feelings either way, and I didn't either. I think it would have been just as interesting to play the nanny, it was certainly the flashier part. But then Curtis [Curtis Hanson] and I had a very long talk and he explained why he decided he'd rather I play the other part. I wasn't so sure about it at first, but then we kept talking, and he explained how he felt. And I agreed to do it. I think Rebecca was great.
5
(1992) It's always weird doing love scenes. And the thing is, you can't really photograph two people kissing naturally, because then you wouldn't be able to see anything. That's what I learned in True Love (1989). There's got to be this...distance. Because you have to be able to see something. We shot the love scene in True Love (1989) for a whole day. I'd never done anything like that before, it was my first film. Ron [Ron Eldard] and I were good friends, and then, all of a sudden, we had to do this love scene. It's almost easier to do if you don't know the person well. We were like, 'Okay, maybe you're not going to like the way I kiss, okay, just tell me if I do something you don't like'. It was so embarrassing. You get so intimate when the cameras are rolling, that when they yell 'cut', you're mortified. But I don't know what to say about the love scene in Jungle Fever (1991), because they're always very uncomfortable. The thing is, when we do fight scenes, when we kill people in the movies, they bring in experts to choreograph it bit by bit, because you can't really kill someone, and you don't want to really hurt them. And in the love scene, you can't really fuck someone. It's make-believe. But when they do love scenes, they don't do anything like that. They don't bring in the love-scene choreographer.
6
(1992, on The Hard Way (1991)) Yeah, I had to defend myself to all these women reporters who kept saying, 'How can you do a role like this, such a girlfriend role?' And I said, 'So what? It's not offensive, or homophobic or misogynistic. So I play Jimmy's ['James Woods'] girlfriend. Big fucking deal'. I thought it was really funny and charming. I thought Michael [Michael J. Fox] was great, and that Jimmy was hilarious. I enjoyed working with both of them. It was a great thing to do; I had a ball, because all I had to do was bounce back and forth between the two of them and enjoy myself.
7
(On her worst job ever) Teaching aerobics on the Upper East Side. It seemed like everyone in my class was anorexic. They had absolutely no energy. Every class, you would always have somebody literally passing out.
Facts
#
Fact
1
Her parents are both of Italian descent.
2
Was formerly in a relationship with actor Bobby Cannavale from 2004 to 2007.
3
She studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.
4
She attended Brooklyn's South Shore High School, and after graduating in 1978, was accepted into New York's prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She graduated in 1980 and founded a repertory group, the Brass Ring Theater Company on November 5, 1981.
5
She earned an Emmy nomination playing Tony Sopranos's girlfriend Gloria Trillo on The Sopranos (1999).
6
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1990" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 42.
